The Hero Biz
by Gaeriel Mallory
Summary: Buffy reconnects with her cousin Scott and learn that they both have more in common than they remembered. Xmen and Buffy Crossover. Spoilers for X2 and Buffy S7.
1. The Hero Biz

Title: The Hero Biz  
Author: Gaeriel Mallory  
Rating: K+  
Fandoms: Buffy and X-men the Movie  
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, Inc. X-men is the property of Marvel, Bryan Singer, and a whole bunch of other people.  
Continuity: After X2 for X-men and up to the series finale for Buffy.  
Notes: I just can't get rid of storylines in which Buffy and Scott are related. A little reworking of this "shared 'verse" that takes into account the rest of the Buffy and Angel timeline and X2. I'm not sure if I'll be adding to this or not; we shall see.

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Buffy Summers got of the taxi and slung her duffel bag over her shoulder as she picked up her suitcase with the other hand. She paid the driver and watched as he drove back down the long driveway and through the gates. The building she was standing in front of was more of a mansion than anything else she could think of. Though unlike the other mansions she had known, it was a lot more inviting – possibly because she knew there would be no Hell Goddess or master vampire on the inside waiting to kill her.

Of course, those mansions were also so much rubble along with the rest of Sunnydale, California. The town had existed for hundreds of years, starting out as a Spanish mission, and she and her friends had reduced it to a giant crater in the ground in less than a day while defeating the First Evil. She figured it was a fair trade off: entire town destroyed but world saved.

In the process, Willow Rosenberg, her best friend and uber-witch, had performed a spell that had activated all the potential Slayers on the globe. She was no longer the Chosen One, or even one of the Chosen Two, as Faith had called it. There were now hundreds, possibly thousands of girls out there with the special abilities to fight the dark.

Which brought her back to the present, standing in front of Charles Xavier's School for the Gifted. There was no Slayer here but there had been several in New York City which was an hour away. She had found them and given them the spiel that her first Watcher Merrick had given her all those years ago, heavily edited. Though it was not word for word, the gist of it was the same and she had sent most of the girls on a bus headed towards Cleveland where they had set up a safe house and training school for the new Slayers. With those who had chosen not to go, she had given them the contact information for the Cleveland headquarters, just in case.

No, the reason why she was in Westchester, New York, was because she had promised her cousin Scott that she would come visit. He had heard about the untimely demise of Sunnydale and had been frantically trying to get a hold of either her or her sister Dawn. Somehow, he had managed to reach Anne in Los Angeles who had passed the message along.

A short vacation away from her Slayer duties was just what she needed to unwind. Even Giles had agreed and had urged Buffy to take a break and return to "a normal life" for a little bit. Whatever normal was anymore. Buffy rang the doorbell and waited. She heard two sets of voices, both male, dimly through the door and she grinned as she recognized one of them as Scott's. As soon as the door opened, she hugged her cousin, dropping her suitcase to do so. She briefly saw another figure disappear through a doorway, most likely the other voice she had heard.

"God, how long has it been?" he asked her with a grin.

"Years," she answered. "And you haven't changed a bit. Still wearing those red glasses, I see. Could you get any more unhip? At least change the color every once in awhile."

His smile wavered a bit at that and he bent down to pick up her suitcase. "What can I say? I like red." He pulled her inside and shut the door. "Come on. Let me show you to your room and let you meet everybody."

Buffy followed along amiably, happy to forget about her duties for the moment. "So, teacher huh? Who would have thought you of all people would be put in charge of a bunch of kids. Killed any yet?"

He grinned ruefully as they walked up a flight of stairs. "I wasn't that bad, was I?"

"Three words: Marvin the hamster."

His cheeks colored briefly and he laughed ruefully. "It was just his time to go, Buff. Besides, I was nine at the time."

Buffy saw a head poke out of one of the bedrooms they passed by and she gave the kid a big smile. His eyes widened and he immediately disappeared back into the room. She chuckled. "So what do you teach? Math? Science? I still can't really see you standing in front of a class. A bunch of cars, yes. Kids, no."

"I actually teach them tech ed and auto maintenance," he told her with a grin. After a pause, he continued, "as well as some English on the side." He stopped in front of a door and opened it. "Here it is. My room is just down the hall that way," he said pointing.

"Thanks, coz." Buffy threw her duffel bag onto the floor next to where Scott had set her suitcase. She sat down on the bed and bounced a little. "Comfy."

"We try and keep our guests happy." He leaned against the door frame and watched her with a smile on his face. "So how long are you staying?"

"I can't stay more than a week. I have stuff I gotta do back home. There's also a chance that I might have leave earlier than that, too if there's an emergency."

"Little Buffy, all grown up and responsible."

She threw a pillow at him which he easily caught. "Hey! At least I never killed a pet."

"That's because your parents never trusted you with a pet," he replied as he threw back the pillow.

She batted it away and stuck her tongue out at him. "Now I remember why I didn't like you when I was a kid. You always teased me."

"You were so easy to tease though. Even when you were six, you worried so much about how you looked and acted. I just had to tease you."

Buffy looked down at her hands. "Yeah well, I've changed a bit since then."

Scott walked over and sat down on the bed beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "I know Uncle Hank hasn't always been there for you but I want you to know if you ever need anything, anything at all, you can come to me. If Aunt Joyce was still alive, she would be so proud of the way you took care of Dawn. You've really grown up and matured, you know?"

She hugged him back, burying her face into his shoulder so that he wouldn't see the tears in her eyes. "Thanks, Scott. I really appreciate that." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry about Jean," she said softly. "I never met her but she sounded wonderful in your letters."

Scott's arms tightened around her. "Thanks," he said hoarsely. "I think you would have liked her. I wish you could have."

She disentangled herself from him and jumped to her feet. "Hey, so who are these other people that you're going to introduce me to? You don't expect me to spend all my time this week with you, do you?"

He grinned at her, glad for the change of subject. "The Professor wanted to talk to you, I know that. Why don't we go to his office first before I hunt down the others?"

* * *

Professor Charles Xavier looked up from his book at the knock on his door. "Enter," he called out, marking his place and closing the book. He smiled in welcome as Scott and an unfamiliar blond woman entered. "You must be Buffy," he said, wheeling out from behind his desk. "Welcome to my school."

She shook his hand and took the seat he offered. "Thanks. I haven't seen much of it but what I have seen looks gorgeous."

Xavier leaned back in his wheelchair. "So Scott tells me that you are starting a school yourself?"

She grinned a little shyly. "I suppose you could call it a school, though it's a bit more complicated than that. Our Cleveland headquarters is up and running and we're looking to reopen our London base soon, and possibly another in Tokyo as well. The London one's ready to go in a few weeks. We're still working on Tokyo though." She grinned.

The Professor frowned slightly. "Isn't that a little ambitious for a new organization?"

"We're not exactly new. The organization that I work for has been around for a long time but they had to go through an unexpected reorganization last year. A lot of things have changed and we're looking to expand so that we have several smaller headquarters rather than one giant one in London."

Xavier frowned. "Just what does your organization do, if I might ask?"

She smiled sweetly in response. "I'm afraid that's classified. But we're on the side of good so you can sleep easy tonight."

"Government?" Xavier kept his outward façade calm but he started to tense with worry on the inside. He began to probe Buffy's mind and encountered a very strong mental shield.

She looked sharply at him, whether in response to his question or because she felt his mind trying to get into hers, he had no idea. "God no, though we carry a great amount of influence with a fair number of national governments." She frowned. "And when I said it was classified, I meant it so keep your mental hands to yourself."

* * *

Scott started, looking at his cousin in shock. _Professor?_ he asked warily.

_Easy, Scott_, Xavier warned. "My apologies, Miss Summers," he said out loud. "But we've recently had some problems with the United States government and I just wanted to be sure of the safety of my school."

"Would this have something to do with the hastily repaired bullet holes I saw in the front foyer?" She stood up suddenly and walked to the window, looking out over the lawn in which two students were kicking a soccer ball back and forth. "I've...also had problems with the government in the past, particularly the military." She glanced over at the two men. "I would never endanger children if I could help it. Though I have learned that it can't be helped at times, in which case the best you could do is train those children to be able to defend themselves."

Scott winced slightly at the age and knowledge in her eyes. Where had the ditzy cheerleader cousin of his gone? He wondered what Dawn was like after so many years. Did she have the same hard look in her eyes as her sister? What could the two of them possibly have gone through since he had seen them last? And how in the world had Buffy gotten a job with an organization that was 'classifed'?

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. The Professor cleared his throat and nodded at Scott. "Why don't you give your cousin a tour of the grounds before dinner? I'm sure the two of you have a lot of catching up to do."

Ten minutes later, the two of them were in the stables and Buffy was petting a chestnut gelding who lipped her cheek in return. "So," he said slowly, "you really did grow up."

"People have a tendency to do that, Scott. And you didn't contact us in eight years, ever since Mom and Dad split. It's like you forgot we existed until you saw Sunnydale become a giant sinkhole." She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the gelding's neck. "It's not like Dad was any help. Do you know how much I would have liked to have known that some relative out there still cared about me? After Mom died..." Her voice trailed off.

Scott hesitantly placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't keep in contact. God knows I don't have enough family that I can do with one less."

Buffy turned around and hugged him. "You had your own shit to deal with," she said softly. "God knows I did."

"Talk to me, Buff. Tell me what's been going on in your life." He looked down at her face. "And none of that 'classified' BS, either."

She laughed shakily. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you about my life."

He let go of her and leaned against the wooden wall, crossing his arms over his chest. "Try me."

She shook her head and headed towards the door. "Forget it. I wasn't kidding when I said the stuff's classified. There're a lot of people who would be in danger if word gets out about what we're doing. We have a lot of political pull but that doesn't mean that we can protect every one of our agents from a government if someone high up decides it would be fun to start seeing just what we can do when we're poked and prodded and injected with stuff."

Scott froze. "I take it you're speaking from personal experience?" he asked cautiously.

She walked outside, calling back behind her, "Classified."

He swore softly and raced after Buffy. He grabbed her arm and spun her around. "Look, this is important. Was the government experimenting on you? Are you a—" He stopped. What could he say without revealing too much information?

She looked up at him. "Am I a what? And no, the government wasn't experimenting on me. Just some people I cared about."

"Why would the government be experimenting on them?" he asked, fearing the answer. Logan's past was still unknown other than the brief hints of the Weapon X project that they had gleaned at Alkali Lake.

Buffy shrugged out of his grasp easily and started walking down the length of the lawn. "I don't want to talk about it."

He groaned in frustration. There were far too many secrets between the two of them. "Were they mutants?" he blurted out.

She looked back at him, a genuine smile lighting up her face briefly. "Mutants?" she laughed. "That would be a no." She shook her head. "Doesn't matter now; we shut them down and the United States government doesn't want to have anything to do with it anymore. It would be a giant political scandal, you see, and there's only so much denying one can do with a body count that high if it comes to light." Taking one look at his face, she added quickly, "And before you ask, no, I didn't kill the soldiers. I don't kill humans."

Scott walked up next to her. "Buffy," he said seriously, "I need to know exactly what you're talking about. Because it sounds suspiciously like a project that someone I know went through. Please."

She shook her head. "You really want to open up the whole can of worms? Because you can't just shove them back in there afterwards and go back to happy denial land. You'll learn all about the ugly things that go bump in the night and all the times the world almost ceased to exist." She looked him in the eye. "Are you sure you want to know? Because that's my life."

Scott looked away, up at the sky. He closed his eyes and took off his red quartz goggles. "Well, Buffy, here's my life." He opened his eyes and let the red beams streak up for a few seconds before closing his eyes and putting his goggles back on. That done, he looked away from Buffy, scared of her reaction.

The silence stretched out until she remarked offhandedly, "Well, that was different." She smiled gently at him. "I always wondered what you were hiding under those shades." She linked arms with him and started walking again, towards the riding trails that threaded through the wooded area surrounding the mansion. "Gotta say, that light show wouldn't have been my first guess."

He relaxed. "Your turn."

"I'm afraid mine isn't quite as flashy," she admitted. She glanced around and tugged him towards a good-sized rock, about the size of a basketball. She knelt down and slid her fingers underneath it, lifting it up easily. She tossed it up in the air and caught it with one hand. She then handed the stone to Scott who staggered under the weight.

After she had taken the rock back and set it back down on the ground, he asked, "You're a mutant too?"

She shook her head. "I wish it were that simple." She sighed. "If only Giles were here; he always does this so much better than I do." She tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. "I suppose I should start at the beginning with demons and vampires and magic." She looked at Scott. "Can you believe in that?"

He sighed and shook his head. "You're asking me to believe the impossible, Buffy."

"I've lived the impossible." She placed a hand on her chest. "I shouldn't be alive right now. I was _dead_, Scott—six feet under in a coffin dead. But here I am, standing in front of you very much breathing." She looked her cousin in the eyes. "So yeah, I'm asking you to believe in vampires, and demons, and all the other things that you only see in horror movies because they do exist."

Scott leaned against a tree and placed his face in his hands. "Say I do believe you," he said, looking at her. "Where do you fit into all this?"

Buffy stepped forward and took his hands in hers. "I'm the person who fights the evil in the world. I was given the strength, the power, to protect people so they can go on living their normal lives without knowing just what hides in the shadows."

He shook his head and broke away from her. "Buffy— Why you?" he asked softly.

She shrugged. "I was Chosen." He could hear the capital 'C' in her voice. "Who knows why the Powers that Be chose me as their warrior but they did." A smile tugged on her lips. "And by the simple fact that the world is still here, I'd say they made a pretty good choice. Though..." She trailed off and sadness returned to her eyes. "Perhaps they could have chosen better."

Arms enveloped her and she relaxed in her cousin's hug. "You have to make some tough choices out there," he whispered. "And in the end, you have to pay for those choices. You can't win all the time. Sometimes, you lose even if you win."

Buffy blinked away tears. "I know the feeling." She looked up and studied Scott. "Jean?" she asked gently.

"I keep asking myself what I could have done differently so that she would still be alive." He stared off into the distance, unwilling to voice such a new grief, even to Buffy. He remembered Jean, running out of the Blackbird to hold back the flood long enough for the plane to get to safety.

She stepped back slightly but still kept hold of his arms. "Why you, Scott?"

"Because if I don't lead, who would? Who would protect those who can't fight back?"

Buffy smiled sadly. "Welcome to the hero business, coz. I get the feeling that we both have some stories to tell."

--fin--


	2. Two to the Rescue

Title: Two to the Rescue  
Author: Gaeriel Mallory  
Rating: G  
Fandoms: Buffy and X-men the Movie  
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, Inc. X-men is the property of Marvel, Bryan Singer, and a whole bunch of other people.  
Continuity: After X2 for X-men and up to the series finale for Buffy. Story two in "The Hero Biz" series.

* * *

Scott woke up to frantic pounding on his door. Keeping his eyes carefully closed, he grasped for his glasses on the bedside table. Exchanging the blindfold he wore at night with his normal daywear, he slipped out from between the covers and padded barefoot over to the door. He opened it, blinking in surprise at the frantic Buffy on the other side.

Her hair tousled by sleep, she had her fist raised to knock on the door again. "I need to get to the city."

He blinked at her, trying to get his brain up to speed with his much-more-awake cousin. He took in the fact that aside from her hair, she was fully dressed, compared to just the sweat pants he had on. "New York City?"

She rolled her eyes but nodded. "One of the Slayers I contacted a few days ago went missing. Her parents just called my cell, wanting to see if I knew where she had gone."

"Maybe she took your advice and went to Cleveland?" He asked hopefully, even as he was reaching for a shirt laying across the back of a chair. God, but the place has turned into a mess since Jean— He pushed the thought away as he tugged the t-shirt over his head.

Buffy followed him into the room and sat down on the bed. "Maria seemed pretty level-headed and she adored her family. She didn't give me the impressions she was the type to run away from home." Turning towards the wall as Scott started to take off the pants he had gone to bed in, she continued. "I called Giles and he has the research team looking up anything that might need the blood of a Slayer within the next day or two. You'd be amazed how many spells or rites need that."

Fully dressed, he placed a hand on her shoulder and she looked at him. "Come on." He told her quietly. "We'll find her."

Before heading out, he grabbed his spare visor from the dresser and replaced his glasses with it. The glasses let him walk around with his eyes open, diffusing the lethal beams to harmlessness. The visor, on the other hand, allowed him to control the beams and use them if necessary. He hoped it wasn't.

He chose the Jaguar. Despite its flashiness and Buffy's comment about the "penis-mobile", it was fast and he was familiar with the car and knew just what it was capable of. He navigated the roads easily. "So do you want to tell me some more about what's going on here?"

Buffy frowned. "What do you mean? I told you everything I know."

"Does this sort of thing happen often? People getting kidnapped or going missing?"

"It's a dangerous job."

He glanced over at her; she was staring out the window. "That's not an answer, Buffy."

"What do you want me to say, Scott?" She finally looked at him and he saw a mixture of emotions cross her face – anger, grief, loneliness, and resolve. "You of all people should know what its like to put your life on the line. I watched people I love be put in danger or even killed because of what we do."

"You mentioned yesterday that you had died." He kept his eyes on the road, afraid to see her reaction to that simple statement.

"I did it to save Dawn," she said softly. "It came down to me or her; one of us had to die in order to save the world." She chuckled and he took one hand off the steering wheel to reach out and place it on her knee. Her fingers curled around his, holding on fiercely. "It was an easy choice to make," she commented. "Dying wasn't the hard part. It was coming back to life after being dead for three months."

"How did that happen, if you don't mind me asking?"

"My friends brought me back. They had only good intentions, but..." she trailed off and he stayed silent, letting her collect her thoughts. "I was happy," she whispered. "I was in heaven and being pulled back into the mortal world really screwed me up for awhile."

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and took a breath. "If you had the choice," he asked, "would you have come back?"

Her hand gripped his harder. "Honestly, Scott? No."

Scott merged onto the deserted highway and headed towards the city and tried not to think of the smiling redhead who was most likely in a better place.

* * *

Maria Cummings and her family lived in Manhattan, in a fairly well-off neighborhood. The doorman buzzed them up after Buffy showed him her ID. In the elevator, she turned towards Scott and said, "Let me do all the talking, okay?"

Maria's mother, Elaine Cummings, let them into the apartment, a split level that was much larger than normal for New York City. Leading the two of them into the living room, she sat down on the couch next to her husband, her hand automatically finding his. Buffy and Scott sat down on a loveseat positioned across the coffee table facing the couch.

Alan Cummings leaned forward and glared at Buffy. "Why would anyone take our daughter?"

Buffy responded, "When I spoke to you a few days ago, I explained just what a Slayer was. Even if Maria had ignored the calling, the calling would not have ignored her." She paused and took a breath. "Just because there are more Slayers in the world than there were a year ago, that doesn't mean that it's any less dangerous out there. For the Slayers themselves, it's actually more dangerous. Most of them are untrained and aren't ready for the things that might come after them just because they are Slayers."

"Why didn't you tell us this before?" he demanded.

Buffy sighed regretfully. "I tried, Mr. Cummings," she replied calmly, "but you refused to hear what I was saying."

Elaine Cumming's lips pursed. "She has such a bright future," she said firmly. "There was no way that we were going to let her get dragged into this...nonsense!" Turning to Scott, she told him, "She's only a junior but she's already been contacted by college recruiters from Duke, Yale, and Cornell. She could have gotten into any school in the country."

Despite his promise to stay silent, Buffy didn't interrupt when he started talking, his voice carefully neutral. She wondered absentmindedly if this was the teacher or the leader in him, or both. "I think need to evaluate just how much you value Maria's academic future over her life. This is not nonsense but very serious."

"I didn't want her to die," Elaine said softly. "That's why I refused to let her go with you in the first place. It's hard enough to live a normal life. What kind of life can she have fighting monsters? What will people say if they find out? They'll think she's a mutant."

Buffy glanced over at Scott before speaking. She had no clue what was going on inside her cousin's head but she was sure that he must have had conversations very similar to this one with his students and their families. "So what? No matter what people say about her, there will always be the truth: Maria has been given a gift, an incredible gift that she can use to help people. Yes, it's dangerous. And yes, people are more likely to make you feel like a freak than a hero. I learned this in my life and I accepted it. But Maria has something that I never had."

Looking the Cummings' in the eye, she continued. "She has others who are going through the exact same thing. She might be different to the rest of the world, but she has the best support system that she can ever have just with the other girls who were Called the same time she was. She has two older Slayers who can train her and give her advice and hopefully steer her away from the same mistakes that we made. She'll have a Watcher to back her up. But most of all, she has you guys." At their shocked looks, she smiled gently. "I thankfully had my mom. Except for a little bump after she found out, she was totally okay with it. Well, not quite okay because I was out there fighting god knows what every night, but it made me feel a lot better that she knew. And I honestly don't know if I could have survived this long without her."

The couple was silent, neither looking at Buffy or Scott. "Find her, please," Alan finally said. "We can discuss all of this after we know she's safe."

Reaching over the coffee table, Buffy laid a hand over their clasped ones. "We'll do our best," she promised. "And thank you for trusting me."

* * *

"So where do we start?" Scott glanced over at Buffy as soon as they were out of the apartment building.

Buffy pulled out her cell and turned it on. "Willow was going to call whenever she got the location spell sorted out. She was going to try and scry for Maria."

"From Cleveland?"

"She's actually in Brazil right now. She and Kennedy were planning on fighting some demons and hunting up some Slayers in between sunbathing."

Not knowing just how to respond to that, he stayed silent as Buffy checked her messages. She then dialed a series of numbers, putting the phone back up to her ear. "Dawn says hi, by the way," she told him distractedly.

Scott leaned against the car as Buffy talked to whoever was on the other end, most likely this Willow. She had given him the Cliff's Notes version of the last eight years of her life and what she had told him had made him want to lock her away somewhere safe and protect her. She was so young, even if she wasn't as young as he had remembered. Not for the first time, he regretted not keeping in touch. The last time, which was also the first time, he had seen Buffy was a year before her parents had gotten divorced. He had just graduated from college and the Professor had encouraged him to reconnect with the little family he had left.

He had resisted at first. There was a lot of residual resentment towards his Uncle Hank who never tried to fight to gain custody of either him or his brother Alex after the plane crash. Deep down, Scott blamed Hank Summers for him being separated from Alex, who he never found again despite the Professor's best efforts.

However, he found that while his uncle might not have wanted to claim him, his wife Joyce welcomed him into the family immediately. And he had been thrilled to find he had two cousins that he had nearly forgotten about. He smiled faintly at the memory of meeting Buffy that first time in her cheerleader uniform. Trying to impose that image with the reality before him, he failed. While there was a physical resemblance, the Buffy standing on the sidewalk talking on the phone was worlds away from the ditzy shallow girl he had first met years ago.

She flipped her phone closed and turned towards him, pulling him out of his thoughts. "Times Square," she told him. "Willow said that she was underground so that means we get to go sewer hunting."

* * *

"Do you do this often?" he inquired after she expertly pried open a storm drain a few blocks away from Times Square.

"More often than I would like." She gestured for him to climb down and followed, carefully replacing the cover after her. "Thankfully, I've gotten into the habit of wearing easily replaceable clothes on patrol. It's a lot easier on the wallet."

"I can imagine." Scott winched when something squished underneath his boot. "So which way?" He shown the flashlight he had found in the glove compartment down the tunnel, carefully not looking too closely at the sludge growing on the walls.

Buffy pointed in a seemingly arbitrary direction. "That way. My Spidey-sense is telling me there's a large group of demons down there."

Scott rolled his eyes as he followed his cousin into the sewers, eyes locked on the battleaxe strapped to her back. "Spidey-sense. I can feel the bad guys shaking with fear as you speak."

She looked over her shoulder and grinned. "You can't be serious all the time, Scott." She turned around again, her voice sobering. "Sometimes you have to joke and laugh or the fear and sadness will take over."

He kept silent, thinking over her words. What would Jean think of him laughing so soon after her death? To enjoy life without her? It seemed inconceivable. She was such a large part of his life for so long, he felt empty and disconnected from the rest of the world now that she was gone. "Does the pain ever go away?" He asked Buffy quietly.

She stopped walking. "No," she replied, still facing forward. "But it does stop hurting so much after awhile. And there are times when you forget it for a little bit. But even if it's hours, or days, or even a month, it comes back eventually. You learn to live with it."

"I don't know if I want to." The light from the flashlight wavered a bit as his hand trembled.

"You have to, Scott, if you ever want to get on with your life." She started walking again. "I knew Mom didn't want me grieving for her forever. I don't think Jean would have either." She stopped abruptly and unhooked the axe and swung it around her body, holding it in front of her defensively. "We're getting close," she told him quietly.

"Right." He transferred the flashlight to his left hand, bringing his other hand up to the side of his visor. It felt odd, not being the leader for once. Usually, he was the one in front, the position which had the most responsibility and the most danger. It stung him a little that his little cousin was in charge and he was the follower for once. Yet, he wasn't so foolish that he didn't know when to defer to someone else. She may be younger but she was the more knowledgeable one here.

They stumbled upon their lair with little warning. Scott observed in the back of his mind that they were covered in green fur and had huge beaks that looked very sharp. Red beams shot from his visor, knocking down the demons. Buffy charged into the utility room they had taken over, her arms swinging the axe with deadly accuracy.

As his cousin took care of the demons, Scott noticed an unconscious girl hanging from the ceiling, her wrists attached to some pipes by a long length of chain. He stood underneath her, cutting through the chain with his power and catching her as she fell. "I have her," he yelled to Buffy.

"Get her out of here," she called back, neatly severing the neck of one of the creatures attacking her. "I'll be right behind you."

With one hand on his visor, he cleared a path through the demons that had noticed he was about to escape with their prisoner. Hoisting Maria over his shoulder, he ran out of the room, ignoring the guilt he felt by leaving Buffy in there alone. He reached for the flashlight, which he had tucked into his back pocket, and used it to light his way down the tunnel. He had reached the ladder up to street level when Buffy caught back up with him.

"You look like hell," she observed as she took Maria from him.

Scott looked down, noticing the blood that spotted his shirt and covered one pant let. "Is it supposed to be purple?"

She shrugged and started up the ladder, easily balancing Maria's body on her shoulder. "Sometime it's green or black. And then there are demons that have slime for blood. Those are fun to wash out of your hair."

"I'm sure." He followed her up and tried not to think too much about just what demon would have slime running through its veins.

* * *

Maria regained consciousness in the car ride back to her home. Buffy was relieved that any awkward questions from the night clerk were avoided by having the younger Slayer enter the building under her own power. Scott and her looked sketchy enough as it was, covered in demon blood and sewer grime. Maria didn't look much better. Her clothes and skin were flecked with dried blood—both her own and her now-dead captors.

That didn't stop her mother from hugging her as soon as she stepped through the door, however. Maria winced and gently extracted herself from her mother. "I'm fine, Mom," she told her. "Though I think I might have bruised some ribs."

The Cummings' ushered the three of them inside. Buffy sat down in the chair they offered her, feeling out of place as Maria's parents thanked her and Scott. She pulled out a business card and handed it to Alan Cummings. She had given the family one like it a couple days prior but she figured that another one couldn't hurt. "This is the number of the Watchers headquarters in Cleveland," she told him. "Even if Maria doesn't become an active Slayer full time, she still needs to be trained to protect herself. Our Watcher-in-charge there, Robin Wood, is extremely competent and he can make sure that Maria gets what she needs."

Alan Cummings accepted the card reluctantly and nodded. "I'll give him a call tomorrow morning."

She looked over at Maria and her mother and smiled sadly. "It is completely possible to live a somewhat normal life, despite having these powers," she told him. "But they won't go away if you ignore them. We have a number of Slayers who are in college right now, or are holding down jobs. The days were a Slayer has to give up her life to dedicate herself to the fight are over."

He slipped the card into his pocket and looked her in the eye. "Thank you," he told her.

Scott moved in beside her and handed him another business card. "My organization is a little closer if you have any problems. We're a private school for gifted children—mutants—and we help them learn to control their powers. I know that Maria isn't a mutant but she's going through a lot of the same stuff that our kids go through."

"I'll—I'll keep that in mind." The second card followed the first into his pocket.

* * *

The sun was well above the horizon when Scott pulled the Jaguar back into the garage. They walked inside to the welcoming smell of breakfast. By mutual agreement, the two Summers headed towards the dining hall rather than their rooms. Their entrance was greeted by shocked stares.

"What the hell happened to you two?" Logan asked as he walked past, carrying a plated loaded down with eggs and sausage. He sniffed and grimaced. "It smells like you went crawling around in a septic tank."

"You wouldn't be too far off, Wolverine," Scott replied. He placed a hand on the small of Buffy's back and steered her towards the buffet line. "So," he remarked to Buffy as he handed her a plate. "That was some night. I must say that was a new experience for me."

She grinned at him. "Just stick with me, Scott, and I'll show you a world you never knew existed." Grabbing two slices of toast, she asked, "Do you like karaoke?"

He frowned. "Why?" he asked warily.

"You'll see," she answered breezily. "Hope you didn't have any plans for tonight because we're going back into the city."

"Should I be scared?"

"Most likely." She winked at him as she moved towards the teachers' table to sit down. Scott sighed and followed.

fin


	3. Silent Melody

Title: Silent Melody  
Author: Gaeriel Mallory  
Rating: K+  
Fandoms: Buffy and X-men the Movie  
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, Inc. X-men is the property of Marvel, Bryan Singer, and a whole bunch of other people.  
Continuity: After X2 for X-men and up to the series finale for Buffy. Story three in "The Hero Biz" series.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Park over there," Buffy told Scott, pointing to an empty spot in front of an office building.

He complied, smoothly parallel parking. "So just where are you taking me?" he asked her as they got out of the car. Buffy had told him to dress casual nice which could mean any number of possible destinations. He raised an eyebrow at her outfit. "And how do you expect to run in those shoes?"

Buffy frowned down at her three inch heeled boots. "Why do you think I'll be running?" She brushed some hair out of her face and looked at Scott. "I can go one night without danger, you know."

He grinned at her over the top of the Jaguar. "You might, but think about who you're with. Between the two of us, I think it's a fair assumption that at least one of us will be running tonight."

She waved his worries away as she walked around the car. "Come on," she said as she tugged his arm. They headed down the block towards an alcoved doorway underneath a neon sign.

"Caritas Reborn?" Scott read. "That's an odd name."

"Wait until you meet the clientele." Buffy opened the door and walked in, not looking back to see if her cousin followed or not.

The first thing Scott noticed about Caritas Reborn was the bright green vaguely human-shaped thing singing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' on the stage across the room from the entrance. He wasn't sure which was more startling – the fact that the thing had horns its choice of music.

"Is he a mutant?" Scott asked Buffy. He prayed that she would answer in the affirmative but knew in his heart that she wouldn't.

She grinned at him. "Nope. He's a demon from another dimension."

The green demon finished up his song, holding the last "I" until the canned music ended. He hopped down from the stage after handing the microphone to another creature that Scott could not begin to identify. Buffy smiled widely and waved an arm high in the air. "Lorne!"

The demon waved back and made his way across the room, side-stepping a waiter carrying a tray of margaritas. "Babycakes!" he greeted Buffy. He hugged her tightly and kissed her on the cheek. "Let me look at you," he said, holding her by the shoulders. "I must say, I love the shoes. So what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

She reached out and tugged Scott over by his jacket. "Lorne, I want you to meet my cousin, Scott. Scott, this is Lorne."

"A pleasure," Scott answered politely, automatically extending his hand.

Lorne grasped it and shook it enthusiastically. "No, no," he assured Scott. "The pleasure is all mine." Moving between the two, he steered them towards a table. "So is he going to be showing off his pipes?" he asked Buffy.

Taking her seat, she grinned over at Scott. "If we can convince him to."

"Well we'll just have to work on him then." Lorne sat down at the table and waved down a passing waiter. "Give them whatever they want," he said. "On the house."

"Lorne!" Buffy protested.

He wagged a finger at her, turning serious. "Not a word of argument from you, missy. I owe you and the Watchers too much. A few drinks won't even make a dent in my debt."

"You don't have a debt with us," she answered. "It was the least we could do after—"

He cut her off. "Buffy. Please. Let me do this much at least for you?" His voice was slightly pleading.

She relented. "I'll have a Shirley Temple," she told the waiter.

Scott nodded. "The same."

Lorne made a face. "Are you sure? My new bartender can make a daiquiri to die for." He gestured over to a red-skinned demon dressed in a loud Hawaiian shirt was expertly flipping bottles of liquors around himself.

Buffy smiled and shook her head. "Not tonight, Lorne. Trouble seems to follow me and I want to stay alert just in case."

"Well, you know the rules. No fighting in here. I just had the anti-violence spells put on the place." Lorne nodded at the waiter who moved off.

Scott looked over at Buffy. "How on earth did you meet him?"

She looked over at where Lorne was greeting a group who had just walked through the door. "The Council helped him set up this place. I didn't know him personally before, but he was a friend of a friend. I'm afraid that we abandoned him and his group during a time when they could have really used our help. It was only after that we realized just what had been going on. Lorne – he was the only survivor that we could find and that was because he had left before the actual fighting."

"So it was guilt money?"

Buffy glanced at him. "Yes," she answered simply. "And I think Lorne knows that but he accepted it anyway. He lost a lot because of Angel and our misjudgments regarding him."

He leaned back in his seat and tried to recall the crash course she had given him on the past eight years of her life. "Angel? He's the vampire, right?"

She nodded. "We thought he had changed sides but it turned out he really hadn't." She sighed. "My life is a whole slew of 'what ifs,' Scott. This is one of the biggest ones of all. What if we had listened and believed Angel when he asked for our help? Would he and other friends of ours still be alive?"

"That's a tough call." He grinned crookedly. "Hell knows I've had my fair share. The worst part is afterwards, when you realize that if you had moved just a bit fast, turned left instead of right – things might turned out differently."

"It's hard to be the one in charge. You get all the glory but you also get all the blame and guilt." Buffy sat up straighter as the water approached with their drinks. She dug into her purse and tried to hand over a bill.

The waiter set down their drinks and backed away, holding the tray up like a shield. "Sorry, miss. They're on the house." He turned around and left before she could press the issue.

Buffy sighed and put the money away. "I'll slip it into his pocket or something later," she told Scott. "It doesn't feel right that Lorne should owe us. It should be the other way around, after everything that happened."

He sipped his Shirley Temple and swirled the red liquid with his straw. "If you want my advice, let him feel like he's doing you the favor tonight. There's a lot of pride on both sides and it's just easier this way." Setting down his glass, he studied the nightclub. He winced when he noticed a group of creatures that were the same species as those he had fought last night in the corner, eating a dish that he deliberately didn't look too closely at. "When I first came to live with the Professor, I had a lot of trouble accepting what he gave me freely. At first, I kept track of everything: every dollar I spent, ever meal I ate, every shirt I wore. I finally realized that I was hurting him a little by doing that. He didn't want to be paid back – it wasn't about that. He wanted me to feel accepted in his home and that by being there, that was enough."

Buffy smiled wryly and she played with her glass. "And now?"

If the beams didn't obliterate anything in their path, he would have felt moisture in his eyes. "He's like my second father. And I know he thinks of me as a son; even named me his heir. He never had any children and I think I filled some hole in his heart."

"Your family is not necessarily the one you were born with, but the one you make yourself," she said. "I was lucky. Mom was always there for me. Xander and Willow, my two best friends – my mom became almost their mom too. Their families were less than welcoming." She frowned. "And Giles became our dad. He was a better parent to us than we could have asked for."

He didn't comment on what she didn't say and that she didn't mention her birth father at all. Hank Summers, you have a lot to answer for, he thought grimly. "Aunt Joyce made everyone feel welcome. I'm going to miss her."

"Yeah," she said softly. "Her death hit all of us pretty hard. She wasn't part of it, not really, and then she died from something that none of us could have fought off. You can't kill a brain tumor. You can't set it on fire or say the magic spell that would make it go away."

"I think those are the deaths that hit us the hardest. We're so used to fighting that feeling useless is even worse than fighting and failing." Scott tapped the side of his glass. "I wish Jean had let me help at the end. She took all choice out of anybody's hands, even the Professor's. She was so powerful that it scared me afterwards, when I finally thought about it."

Buffy stayed silent and Scott looked over at her. "What are you thinking?"

Her lips twitched. "With great power comes great responsibility." She chuckled. "Sorry, but Xander's a big comic book geek and Andrew's even worse. It's from—"

"Spider-man," he cut her off. He smiled in spite of everything. "You forget, I live in a mansion full of teenagers. I've walked in on my fair share of comic book conversations."

She made a face. "You've never met Andrew and Xander." She sipped her drink and sighed. "Sometimes I wish I could turn back time and tell my younger self things. Like, don't sleep with Angel, or push Faith to open up more. Life would certainly be different."

"But would it be better?" Scott closed his eyes and sat back. "How about, tell the people around you that you love them everyday because they might not be around tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Buffy said softly. "There's that one too. Definitely a biggie."

Scott opened his eyes and sat up straight when he felt another body slip into the booth with them. Lorne carried a drink with a paper umbrella poking out of it. "So how are you two doing? Ready to get onto the stage and show us what you've got?" He winked at Buffy. "I know you want to."

She rolled her eyes. "Please. Do you see Sweet or one of his brothers around here? No way you're getting me up there without magical influence. I'm also a private person and don't like the idea of you poking around my aura or soul or whatever it is."

Scott frowned in confusion. "What?"

"I'm an empath demon," Lorne explained rather unhelpfully.

"And that means..."

"I can read people when they sing. I can tell how you're feeling, what emotional or mental hang-ups you might have, sometimes even a little bit of your destiny. A lot of people come here and sing for me and I give them advice based on what I see."

Scott felt his gut knot up and he forced air into and out of his lungs. "No," he said firmly. "No singing." The thought of knowing—he didn't even acknowledge all he was feeling to himself. There was no way he was letting some empath look into his soul. His very flawed and broken soul.

"Scott? Are you okay?" Buffy's concerned voice brought him back to himself.

His hands were clenched tightly around his glass and he was shaking. He let out a shuddering breath. "Yeah," he answered her, forcing his fingers to relax. "Just—" He shook his head. "Sorry," he said finally.

Lorne smiled sadly and patted his arm gently. "It's all right, hon. I understand." He got up and saluted them both with his drank. "If I don't see you again before you leave, it was nice talking to you guys. Stop in anytime." He walked off towards the bar.

Buffy finished her Shirley Temple in a few gulps and wiped her mouth with a napkin. "I'm sorry, Scott. I shouldn't have brought you here."

"No, it's okay." He grinned shakily at her. "Though I think I need some fresh air."

They didn't run into Lorne on their way out, which he was glad of. The coolness of the night air revived him a little on their walk back to the car. Once inside the vehicle, he slid the key into the ignition but made no move to turn it. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I know you were just trying to help."

"Don't apologize. It's not your fault." Her brown eyes were sympathetic. "You just weren't ready."

He nodded and turned on the car. The drive back to the mansion was quiet. Scott wondered what Buffy was thinking about, or maybe rather who. In his mind, a red-haired woman in a lab coat smiled playfully at him.

--fin--


	4. Broken Dams

Title: Broken Dams  
Author: Gaeriel Mallory  
Rating: K+  
Fandoms: Buffy and X-men the Movie  
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy, Inc. X-men is the property of Marvel, Bryan Singer, and a whole bunch of other people.  
Continuity: After X2 for X-men and up to the series finale for Buffy. Story three in "The Hero Biz" series.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Scott walked downstairs the next morning and headed for the dining hall. He paused as he noticed a cluster of boys peering out the windows of the bay doors that lead into the back gardens. "Bobby?" he asked, singling out Drake as one of the few he recognized based on the back of their heads. "What's so interesting?"

The boys jumped or twitched in surprise as his voice and a few faces turned guiltily to face him.

Bobby's face turned pink and he shook his head, mumbling something that Scott couldn't quite pick up.

He sighed and pushed through to the window, where he spied Buffy – clad in a sports bra and a pair of sweat pants – performing a complicated series of movements which he vaguely recognized as martial arts, only severely slowed down. Scott shook his head in amusement. "Okay, fellas," he said. "Why don't you go get breakfast, huh?"

The teenagers reluctantly decamped down the hallway. Scott opened the door and stepped outside, shivering a bit at the slight chill in the morning air. How did Buffy stand it? He sat down on a bench placed to the side of the exit and watched her finish her exercise. She clasped her hands in front of her and slowly lowered them, her feet together and her head slightly tilted down. Keeping that position for a few heartbeats, she then looked up and smiled at him. "Chased off the ogling masses?" she asked cheerfully.

"You noticed them, huh?" He stood up and walked over to her. "I should apologize for them, but they're teenaged boys and you're not exactly fully dressed."

She shrugged. "Like you said, teenaged boys. You should have seen some of the things Xander used to do when he was pretending he wasn't looking."

"That was tai chi, wasn't it?" he asked.

She nodded. "Angel and I used to practice in the mansion when he was recovering. It was calming." She walked past him and opened the door. "I sometimes get up early and do a few katas if I need to think or something."

He followed her inside and up to her room. She grabbed a sweatshirt which she pulled over her head. The front had "UC Sunnydale" printed on it in generic collegiate apparel lettering. "Did you ever think about going back to school?" he asked her suddenly.

She paused with a brush poised against her hair and frowned. "Not really," she said. "You don't really need a degree to slay monsters, and my life is just too hectic to even think about even part-time." Pulling her hair back into a ponytail, she sighed. "Dawn, on the other hand, is just itching to go study dead languages at Oxford or Cambridge. Xander calls her 'mini-Watcher'."

"And how do you feel about that?" He tried to remember Dawn, who when last he saw her was still going through potty-training, as a Watcher. Scott failed miserably.

She shrugged. "I can't keep her out of the fight, though god knows I've tried." She sat down on her bed and flopped onto her back. "Did you know that she's going to be seventeen this year? Seventeen! When did we get so old?"

He chuckled at that. "I don't think you're in any danger of being put into a nursing home yet." He walked over to the desk and pulled out the chair. Turning it around, he straddled it and rested his arms on the back. "How about the fighting? Will she be going on patrol and stuff?"

Buffy rolled onto her side and propped herself up on an elbow. "Yeah, she will. We're training the Watchers to be able to fight alongside their Slayers. We're hoping to get them all up to the level of brown belt at least before letting them into the field by themselves."

"That's rather ambitious," Scott observed. "Doesn't it usually take several years to get up there?"

"We're working on an accelerated program similar to the ones military black ops uses. It's still in the trial stages but Giles has some high hopes for it. In the meantime, it's practice practice practice for the would-be Watcher-types." She smiled. "Dawn's actually been leading some of the sparring sessions. She's been itching to take some of the Watchers on patrol to give them some field experience."

"And how do you feel about that?"

Buffy sighed. "She's determined. We all learned long ago that when Dawn wants something bad enough, she'll go after it herself despite what the rest of us say. I may not like it that she wants to be on the front lines, but if she's going to be a Watcher, I'm going to make damn sure that she can take care of herself. I've seen enough people I care about in body bags already.

"And, well, I hate to say it, but she's good. She's got a knack for researching and growing up in Sunnydale gave her early experience with fighting. Dawn knows what she's doing. And we've also been letting it spread through the demon grapevine that if anything happens to her, the entire weight of the Council will come down on whoever is responsible."

"So you guys are that powerful?" Scott's brow furrowed at the thought. Just how scary do you have to be to get the demons afraid of you?

"We have a rep." She sat up and stretched. "You stop so many apocalypses and kill so many Big Bads and suddenly, things start running away from you in the street when you confront them." A slight smile touched her lips. "You should have seen Willow and Xander's faces the first time a demon surrendered to them on patrol. This big seven foot tall X'la with spikes coming out of its arms, face down on the street begging for mercy."

Buffy got off the bed and walked to the door. "So, breakfast?" she asked, lightly bouncing on the balls of her feet.

At the dining hall, Scott watched bemusedly as Buffy charmed embarrassing stories about him out of Ororo and the Professor. Logan's eyes studied him and Buffy, as if trying to figure out how the two Summers could be related.

Focusing on his oatmeal, Scott tuned out the sounds of his cousin's laughter and tried to settle his thoughts on today's classes. His advanced class was reading _Macbeth _and he hadn't discussed with them the differences between Shakespeare's version and what historians say really happened with the Scottish king. His other classes were reading _To Kill a Mockingbird_ and he still had not prepared more than a skeleton lecture outline for them. He was startled out of his thoughts by Buffy's elbow into his stomach.

"Did you really?" she asked him, mirth in her voice.

He glanced around, confused. "Huh?" he answered intelligibly.

The Professor chuckled and quickly relayed the conversation to him mentally. Scott blushed and dropped his spoon back into his bowl. "It seemed like a good idea at the time!" he protested. "How was I supposed to know that the food coloring wouldn't wash off?" He remembered the week after Halloween he had spent bright green because he didn't have makeup for his Frankenstein costume. Instead, he had used food coloring to dye his skin. The students still teased him about it every October. Jean had even left bottles of food coloring in his desk this past year.

He sighed as he thought about Halloween without Jean. Christmas, New Year's, St. Patrick's Day. 365 days a year, 24 hours a day without Jean. The pain had lessened, yes, but it was still there and it came back with a vengeance at times -- like now. He pushed his oatmeal away from him and stood up. "Excuse me," he said stiffly. "I have to go get ready for my classes." He walked quickly to his office and shut the door firmly behind him, and then locked it.

* * *

Buffy looked worriedly at the other adults at the table. "Is he all right?" She noticed the sadness that flickered across the Professor's face and latched onto him. "What's going on with Scott?"

The Professor shook his bald head and tapped his forehead, looking at her significantly.

Oh for pity's sake. She rolled her eyes and carefully lowered her mental shields enough for a telepath to communicate with her.

_I would give Scott some room today. He was reminded of Jean._

_Ah_, she replied, all too familiar with grief and how quickly it can hit without warning. _Just how long has it been?_ Scott had been very vague about when Jean had died and in what manner. She'd been able to figure out that she had been killed in action but that was about it.

_It was just a few months ago. The wound is still very fresh for all of us._ The Professor's sad eyes stared at her from the other end of the table.

_He has to talk about it eventually_

_He will in his own time. We all know about it so he never had to speak of it, and I took care of informing her parents. To anyone else, it was simple enough to say that she had died in the Blackout like so many others._

Buffy put her shields back in place and sat back in her seat, her lips pursed in thought. While it was true that grief didn't just disappear overnight, what Scott was doing wasn't helping him heal. By bottling it up inside and not speaking of Jean to anyone, he was only delaying how long it would be before he broke down emotionally. And if it happened while he was out on a mission…

Today, Buffy decided. Today I'll get him to talk about what happened.

* * *

Somehow, Scott wasn't surprised to see Buffy lying on his bed, flipping through a magazine. She glanced up at him as he walked through the door. "How were the kiddies?"

He threw his briefcase onto the desk chair and rolled his neck. "The usual," he replied.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and leaned forward. "How did Jean die?"

Behind his glasses, he closed his eyes. He knew that she would have asked him eventually and judging by the way she had all but ambushed him, she wasn't going to settle for anything less than a full answer.

Sighing wearily, he asked, "Do you remember the Blackout?"

She nodded. "Of course. Who doesn't?"

He moved over and sat down on the bed, learning against the headboard. "It was caused by a man named Stryker. He had invaded the mansion and kidnapped as many of the students as he could. But his real goal was Cerebo, a machine that amplifies the Professor's powers. It's how we find new mutants. It all ended at a supposedly abandoned military base in Canada at Akali Lake. There was some mind control and Stryker got Xavier to use Cerebo to attack all the mutants in the world.

"Only, Magneto – you've heard of him, yes?" At her nod, he continued. "We had teamed up with Magneto to stop Stryker. We should have known better. Magneto rearranged Cerebo's plates so that regular humans were pinpointed. We finally stopped them but in the fight, weakened the dam. The plane couldn't lift off and we would have all been killed but Jean…" He stopped and swallowed hard. "She ran off the plane and saved us. She held back the tidal wave and forced the Blackbird into the air."

He felt Buffy's arms encircle him and he leaned back into the embrace, finally letting himself cry. "There was nothing I could do!" he whispered. "She was so powerful at the end that even the Professor couldn't—"

"Shhh," Buffy whispered, gently rocking him. "It's okay." Her hands smoothed his hair and he shook with sobs. He closed his eyes, letting the tears spill out from under his eyelids.

Last night, after returning from the city, he had come close to falling apart but had instead fallen asleep with the help of some sleeping pills that Jean had kept in the medicine cabinet. In the morning, the grief had receded enough for him to function even with the reminder at breakfast.

"It's okay to cry," Buffy told him. "You don't have to be strong all the time. You're only human after all."

And because it was true, he let himself get lost in his grief for tonight at least. He put Cyclops, fearless leader, behind him and just became Scott, who was allowed to cry and show emotion.

--fin--


End file.
